Exhibit "A" in the "Liberals were born yesterday, and have no sense of history from before the day they were born", is the argument that conservatives should somehow roll over and play dead on Obamacare because, "It's the Law of the Land!" This argument is usually preceded or followed by the talking point that the Hindenburgic** catastrophe that is the Obamacare website is merely a "glitch", you know, like iphones get sometimes. Like the A-bomb over Hiroshima was a "glitch" in their morning commute!
What's more surprising is the inability of so called progressives to see just how lame and shallow that argument actually is. Which laws would still be on the books today, if opponents of those laws had merely resigned themselves to fate, because the laws had been duly passed, signed by the president and "established", and perhaps validated by the Supreme Court (those wonderful people who brought you Dredd Scott!):
*Slavery
*Blue laws (businesses can't open on Sundays)
*Jim Crow
*Prohibition of alcohol
*No prohibitions on child labor
*No women's sufferage***
*Only property owners could vote
*No ban on monopoly
*Bans on homosexuality
*Bans on abortion, pre-1974
*Laws banning marijuana use
*Laws requiring religious litmus tests before obtaining government employment
*Laws permitting prayer in schools and displays of Nativity scenes on public property
Pray tell me which of the laws above you would be in favor of living under today, because they were "the Law"? Because they were "established law? Because they had been signed by the president or upheld by the Supreme Court??
Did you know, that today, there are even laws that permit private citizens to own firearms? Yes! Even handguns!! Laws that are established and validated by the Supreme Court. Can you imagine me going to the next meeting of Handgun Control, Inc. and requesting a moment to speak?

"Dear friends! Gun ownership is the Law of the Land! It's established and validated by the Supreme Court!"

At which time, everyone turns to one another and says, "I did not know that! Why, what are we doing here? Let's go home and bake some cookies!"
If you believe that that argument would carry any significant weight, there are pleasant young men in white coats waiting in the hallway to take your names and contact your next of kin to see whether or not they'd like to have you committed. (All liberals are committed or should be, right?)
Let's go for the trifecta. "The Obamacare website debacle is just a glitch", "It's the Law of the Land!", and..."Obama was reelected"! GOP, pack your tent and go home! While it is true that Obamacare was one of the planks of his platform, it was not the only plank, nor was it the only reason to vote for Obama. Polls taken the day after the election showed that a majority of the American public still disliked Obamacare. So, that wasn't it.
Maybe portraying Romney as a heartless, out of touch bazillionaire (unlike John Kerry, who was never portrayed as being out of touch, even though his wealth was far greater), who caused ex-employees' wives to die of cancer had something to do with it?
Maybe it was all the promises he made so convincingly as he read them from his teleprompter, and later broke (the promises, not the teleprompter!), like promising to cut the deficit (he didn't. Not in real terms anyway), and reduce healthcare costs for a family of four by $2,500 a year (stop laughing! They're going up $7,500 instead)? Maybe it was his assurances that because of his leadership (Again, stop laughing!) GM was alive (even though Detroit was dead), and bin Laden was dead (even though al Qaeda wasn't).
But again, how shallow and meaningless is the claim that because the president was elected and then reelected, we need to roll over and let him do whatever he thinks is best. Do the names "Ronald Reagan", "Richard Nixon" and "George W. Bush" ring a bell? Each of those men was elected and reelected. How many liberals rolled over and let them accomplish everything they set out to do. Show of hands...
Beuller? Beuller???
If shooting down the trifecta of lame arguments wasn't enough, consider this: Obamacare was a bill of over 20,000 pages, none of which were devoted to cutting costs, but in some cases limiting payments to physicians and health providers, which will surely lead to rationing of health care. This massive document was passed, largely unread by those who voted for it, in the dead of night, between Christmas and New Years, by a strictly partisan vote, after much back room wheeling and dealing. Can anyone honestly say that a bill so complex, so hastily put together and voted on strictly according to party lines, has absolutely no provision that should not or ought to be changed? I'm not sure that Catholics believe the Pope is that infallible! Since when do our legislators speak ex cathedra?
Liberals have no leg to stand on in this argument. And under Obamacare, they may have to wait nine months to get an MRI to diagnose their condition, after which, there will be an additional tax on their prosthesis, assuming that Obama hasn't bankrupted the company by then. In any case, they should expect to get last year's model prosthetic leg, because of all the disincentives against research and development placed into a 20,000 page law, that already has an additional 20,000 pages of judicial interpretation, that the House of Representative is absolutely permitted by established law from funding.

**It's about time that someone started using it as an adjective! I am that pioneer!
***For all you social science and art majors, it means they couldn't vote!
Original art work created for Proof Positive by John Cox

11 comments:

"Which laws would still be on the books today, if opponents of those laws had merely resigned themselves to fate, because the laws had been duly passed, signed by the president and "established", and perhaps validated by the Supreme Court (those wonderful people who brought you Dredd Scott!"

"If shooting down the trifecta of lame arguments wasn't enough, consider this: Obamacare was a bill of over 20,000 pages, none of which were devoted to cutting costs, but in some cases limiting payments to physicians and health providers, which will surely lead to rationing of health care. This massive document was passed, largely unread by those who voted for it, in the dead of night, between Christmas and New Years, by a strictly partisan vote, after much back room wheeling and dealing. Can anyone honestly say that a bill so complex, so hastily put together and voted on strictly according to party lines, has absolutely no provision that should not or ought to be changed?"

You want to change the law? Then go right ahead, change the law. Change the law using the USA Constitutional proscribed process.

PRESIDENT Obama has meticulously followed the rule of law in getting ACA written (all 200 gwadzillion pages of it), negotiated, amended, passed, and signed into law. Now that ACA (all 400 gwadzillion pages of it) is established through the constitutionally proscribed procedures, the USA House Of Representatives (who have failed over 40 times through established legal law changing methods) is trying to run around the rule of law.

House Republicans have shut down the government and are threatening to keep the government shuttered not in order to delay further discussion on a pending bill, but rather in an attempt to rewrite the history of the legislature, to override a Constitutional law that has already been decided and judged constitutional before the Supreme Court.

So far you and the RepublicanT TeaBagists have failed to come up with an argument against allowing the USA people access to affordable health care insurance. Every other modern civil society has a form of national health care that has not destroyed/bankrupt their economy. (Look, even Costa Rica has health care for its people.)

Note: all the examples you cite above were changed through the rule of law. The people were able to go through the whole constitutional proscribed process to repeal a constitutional amendment!

Can you say your hysterical temper tantrums against ACA (all 600 gwadzillion pages of it) are even near the rule of law?

Or are you one of those who believe they have to destroy the Constitution to save the Constitution?

Dear Ema, That which ye spam, that shall ye also eat! My replies to your comment from the other place you spammed it:

"You want to change the law? Then go right ahead, change the law. Change the law using the USA Constitutional proscribed process."

Excellent first point, Ema! Give yourself a gold star! Then, you can tell us how it is that Obama, the president, for all you uninformed liberals and Democrats (but I repeat myself!), can amend, by himself, Constitutionally, a law that Congress has passed?

*Crickets chirp*

I could have added a fifth argument, that with all the liberals bleating, "It's the law! It's the law!", why none of them have been morally outraged over his Constitutional cafeteria approach to deciding which parts of a law he will and will not enforce, and which dates, written into the law, he will arbitrarily change.

If you want to fall on the sword that the law must be upheld, then you have to ask that all the law and all the laws be upheld...not just the ones you like or that benefit your friends.

"So far you and the RepublicanT TeaBagists (sic) have failed to come up with an argument against allowing the USA people access to affordable health care insurance." Ema, I've found that when the unhinged Left starts sputtering and name calling, it's because, in what passes for their minds, they've already lost the argument.

Calling the government take over of the insurance industry "The Affordable Care Act" doesn't make it affordable. No conservative I know is against anyone having health care. It is already mandated in hospitals that you cannot turn anyone away who is in need of medical care. And the bill's 0riginal moral imperative was that 13 million people were without health care. It overlooked the fact, that in many cases, such as younger individuals, it was by choice. But, we all know the only choice that Democrats are comfortable with has to do with abortion, so the so called "Affordable Care Act takes away the choice of whether or not to buy insurance or pay a fee/tax (whichever side of the Constitution the Supreme Court wakes on on any particular morning).

Further, Obama lied when he said you could keep your insurance if you liked it. There are now fewer insurance choices and nearly all of them cost more under the president's plan.

And for all your bleating about Constitutional process, maybe you should try reading the Constitution for a change. You might stumble across the concept of "checks and balances". The Constitution, dear Ema, provides the power of the purse strings as a check against, say, some president who arbitrarily amended laws in a way not proscribed by the Constitution?

You say the Republicans have shut down the government, but no more so than President Obama. House Republicans have passed a CR containing funding for every other function of government. The fact that President Stompy Foot doesn't get 100% of what he wants doesn't make the other guy's fault if Obama himself refuses to negotiate.

And speaking of CRs and the Constitution, do you realize that all, repeat ALL of the budgetary crises and brinksmanship since 2009 falls squarely on the back of Harry Reid's Democrat controlled Senate? You bleat about the Constitution, how about the Constitutional requirement that the Senate pass a budget no later than October?

The reason that Harry Reid will not pass a budget in the Senate, as the Constitution requires, dear Ema, is because the Democrats do not want to admit to God and everybody just how much money they want to spend, what they want to spend it on, and how much more they want to spend than the tax revenues projected to come in.

If the Senate, under Democrat Harry Reid, had passed a budget every year since 2009, hell, any year since 2009, we would not be quibbling over Continuing Resolutions, in lieu of a budget which Democrats will not pass.

And because you are intellectually consistent, and not at all a partisan, weaselly hypocrite, you can show me where you have both criticized Reid for failing to pass a budget in the Senate for four years and where you have criticized Obama for unConstitutionally amending the Unaffordable Health Care Takeover?

And I forgot to mention that when the bill is fully implemented ten years from now, there will still be, according to CBO estimates, 15 million people uninsured. I guess that's because Democrats are "against allowing the USA people (sic) access to affordable health care insurance".

"And for all your bleating about Constitutional process, maybe you should try reading the Constitution for a change. You might stumble across the concept of "checks and balances". The Constitution, dear Ema, provides the power of the purse strings as a check against, say, some president who arbitrarily amended laws in a way not proscribed by the Constitution?"

USA Constitution - Amendment 14:

Section 4.The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.

If (AND THIS IS A BIG _IF_!) President Obama is acting in an unconstitutional manner, USA Constitution even has proscribed procedures for Congress and the people to follow. Every law has implementation instructions that allows for exceptions and extensions, is the ACA (all 800 gwadzillion pages of it) any different?

For The Record - "Governing successfully while black" does not constitute an impeachable offense; no matter what Murdoch Media/Fox Networks tell you.

House Republicans have shut down the government and are threatening to keep the government shuttered in an attempt to rewrite the history of the legislature, to override a Constitutional law that has already been decided and judged constitutional before the Supreme Court.

You cannot win by playing by the rules. You cannot win the vote. You cannot win in Congress. You cannot win in court. You cannot win in the public square (opinion).

Dear Ema, first, let me congratulate you for trying to bolster your typically lame arguments with actual facts. And congratulations on finding at least a portion of our Constitution. Typically, you have trouble finding stuff with both hands! Let's look at what you've copied:

"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."

Since the House wants to defund Obamacare, and passed a CR funding everything but Obamacare, first let me ask you if you believe that Obamacare is a "pension or bounty for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion"?

No? How about "public debt"? Since the House is taking money out of the budget for future expenditures, how is this a "debt"? If you cancel your cable service, are you in "debt" for all the months you don't have service? Well, maybe you, Ema, but not normal people.

"If... President Obama is acting in an unconstitutional manner, USA Constitution even has proscribed procedures for Congress and the people to follow." Yes it does. And it presumes that a President would be impeached by a Congress of honorable men who would be following the precepts of the Constitution. By we have Harry Reid and a group of partisan scoundrels in the Senate. I do not believe that the Founding Fathers anticipated or could ever imagine the infestation of the White House and Senate by so many thieves, scoundrels, dishonorable men and mountebanks at one time.

We have already seen that Harry Reid ignores the Constitution when it suits his political agenda. It would be a fool's errand to seek justice from knaves like Reid.

"Governing successfully while black" Really, Ema, you had to go there? There was nothing in this discussion about race. Liberal race baiting stooges only bring up race when they are losing the argument.

A corollary to Godwin's Law: "... if you call your opponent a Racist, you have also lost the argument." -Tim Slagle

"House Republicans have shut down the government and are threatening to keep the government shuttered" Obama shut down the government rather than compromise on a single item. Keep whistling by the graveyard, Ema. You know how to whistle? Just pucker up and let the wind blow through your head.

"How about "public debt"? Since the House is taking money out of the budget for future expenditures, how is this a debt"?"

Nice try. The ACA law (all 100 gawdzillion pages of it) was passed into law through Constitutional proscribed manner in the previous Congress. The valid public debt was incurred when the USA Congress passed the ACA law (all 200 gawdzillion pages of it).

You don't like it? Change the law through constitutionally proscribed procedures.

""House Republicans have shut down the government and are threatening to keep the government shuttered" Obama shut down the government rather than compromise on a single item."

Please tell US. How many votes in the USA House Of Representatives does President Obama cast? Funny, how you and so many RepublicanT TeaBagist hysterically screamed for and actively worked for government shut down and are now running away from your sorry deeds.

As the great Jon Stewart put it, "Don't fart and point at the dog." The 2013 USA government shut down is yours; own it, wear it. Is it that, you cannot win by playing by the rules? Is it that you cannot win the vote? Is it that you cannot win in Congress? Is it that you cannot win in court? Is it that you cannot win in the public square (opinion)?

Through a tantrum. So kick-over the board, strut like a pigeon, and scream you won.

I seem to remember Democrats rolling over and playing dead after the war in Iraq (THAT THEY VOTED FOR) wasn't going as well as anyone had hoped. The war was established by law, after all. So true to form, the Dems took full responsibility for their actions like the mature adults that they are, and they let Bush have his way without any complaints or resistance. Because patriotism.

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